Ad sales veteran Arghya Chakravarty recently joined Shemaroo Entertainment as Chief Operating Officer (COO) to manage the overall business operations of the legacy media company. As COO, Chakravarty's top agenda is to grow the broadcast business and make it profitable by FY24. He also intends to expand Shemaroo's presence in the digital space by scaling up ShemarooMe and bolstering its digital channels on platforms like YouTube and Facebook. Chakravarty feels that Shemaroo's content syndication business still has a lot of juice left particularly in the international markets. He spoke at length with exchange4media on Shemaroo's game plan to become a consumer-facing company in its 60th year of operations.

Excerpts:

How is the FTA market shaping up considering the rapid growth of DD Free Dish and the exit of the Big 4 GECs from the platform?

DD Free Dish already has a huge penetration, and it will continue to grow. After the exit of the Big 4 Hindi GECs from DD Free Dish space, there was a little vacuum in the first five-six months as the GRPs had dropped, and the other players were not able to capture the GRPs that were up for grabs. But over a period, other channels have managed to grab a slice of that viewership pie. We were a small player, but today between our two channels (Shemaroo TV and Shemaroo Umang), we have 80 GRPs in the U+R market. Other independent networks have also launched their second Hindi GECs. So, this trend of smaller networks filling in the void will continue.

DD Free Dish still has space to grow as it caters to a certain kind of audience that Pay-TV is not able to reach. If you look at the DD Free Dish universe today, there is an increase in the volume of original content. The Big 4 largely offered repeat content which was aired on their flagship Hindi GECs. That said, the repeat content is akin to fresh content for the DD Free Dish audience since they don’t have access to pay channels.

The original content that is being put out by us and Dangal is getting traction on DD Free Dish. Advertisers, particularly FMCG companies like HUL and Dabur, are interested in reaching out to this audience. I feel that there will be some consolidation in the FTA space, it is not that it will proliferate. The channels that have entered this market will continue to expand, and that market is still going to see growth at least for the foreseeable future.


Most of your FTA channels are available on pay-TV platforms also apart from DD Free Dish. What’s the viewership split between DD Free Dish and pay platforms?

Our viewership share from pay platforms is still very modest. Our viewership comes largely from the DD Free Dish space. The DD Free Dish also has a decent footprint in the urban market, it is not just a rural phenomenon. We are expanding our reach by getting on to more pay platforms, but the challenge on the pay platforms is that channel placement is extremely critical. Landing pages are too expensive, and we don't play in that space. The logical channel number (LCN) allotted to our channels will also play a critical role as we expand in the pay universe. Barring Tata Play and Airtel Xstream, we are close to signing contracts with other pay platforms, particularly the smaller multi-system operators (MSOs). We are also seeing how we can use the power of our content and brand to get better LCN on the distribution platform.

Shemaroo MarathiBana has a presence on all the major networks in Maharashtra which is largely a pay-TV market with a very limited DD Free Dish presence. Availability is not an issue as Shemaroo MarathiBana has 70-80% reach. The issue with the channel is the lack of original content. In the past, it was largely a movie-based channel and there is limited traction for movies alone. Hence, we are converting it to a GEC by getting fresh original content to grow our market share. In a couple of months, you will see fresh original content coming on the channel. We are bolstering the channel’s management team by hiring experts from the Marathi GEC space.

In the Hindi GEC space, the reach of Shemaroo Umang and Shemaroo TV is reasonably strong in the FTA market and we are well-placed in markets like Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and UP. The reach will further strengthen as we expand our reach on Pay-TV networks in these markets. As we speak, a lot of activation is happening in that space, in terms of seeding the channels and getting the right LCN numbers.

What’s your content strategy for the three channels?

On Shemaroo TV, we have an original show called Crime World. We have just launched a new show on Shemaroo Umang called KKLS (Kismat Ki Lakeeron Se). I think over the next 4-5 months, we should have nothing less than 2 to 2.5 hours of original programming which will be at par with some of the leading channels in the genre. In Marathi, we aim to be at that level over a period of time but it won’t happen soon since we need to hire the right people.

We have managed to create a sharp differentiation between Shemaroo TV and Shemaroo Umang. Shemaroo TV is slightly skewed toward male audiences due to its focus on mythology and crime content whereas Shemaroo Umang is a typical Hindi GEC with a skew toward female audiences. We are not compromising on the quality of content and are working with some of the best producers in the business like Rashmi Sharma Productions. We will give breathing time to our shows before launching a new show.

What is your game plan to monetise the three channels?

I see tremendous potential in our broadcast business. While I can’t talk about specific numbers, over a period of the next 1 to 1.5 years we should be doubling our ad revenue. Our aim is to become a very strong player in the broadcast space by 2023. Investing in fresh shows will help us to strengthen our broadcast business from the ad revenue standpoint also.

While GRP is an important criterion in getting advertisers there is a bit of premiumness attached to new shows. Also, when you're making new shows, it gives you lots of opportunities to do branded sales like in-show integrations. While we are monetising well for the kind of GRPs we have currently, we foresee a steep jump in our ad revenue due to investments in fresh programming.

The ad revenue of the Big 4 GECs is estimated at around Rs 1000-1200 crore. So, is that revenue up for grabs or have these channels managed to retain a large part of that ad revenue?

The entire Rs 1000 crore is not gone away from these Big 4 but a large part of that money has gone away because the GRP catch-up has happened. Movies have become big as the big networks have not removed their movie channels from DD Free Dish. At the end of the day, advertisers are hungry for GRPs in the U+R market. The GRPs have moved from GEC to movies, therefore, a lot of the money has also moved to the movies.

Will you expand your broadcast portfolio by entering new genres?

There is a lot of work that needs to be done on these three channels. We have to get in fresh content on all these three channels and we also have to up our game on the monetisation piece. We want to make the broadcast business profitable, self-sustaining, and generating cash by the end of next year. Our goal is to make the broadcast business profitable by FY23-24.

There are lots of opportunities that we are evaluating in different genres and languages. Our long-term play is to become a larger network and to do so you can't just rely on three channels, you need to have a bouquet of channels. But we need to first strengthen and solidify what we have, make it self-sustaining and then go to the next steps.

What progress has ShemarooMe made in a crowded OTT market?

We have identified our strengths very clearly as a Gujarati content-focused OTT platform. We have a lot of Bollywood content, but we are the leading player in the Gujarati language. With the strong lineup of Gujarati content, we have put together, we are committed to launching one new content offering every week, which may be a movie or a web series. If you look at the OTT space, a lot of regional players today are coming up like aha in the South and hoichoi in the Bangla market.

Our subscriber base is rapidly increasing month on month, and we will have a very solid base by the end of FY23. We are producing a lot of fresh content in Gujarati. From the time it launched, I can see a dramatic change in trajectory in the last six months and there is a lot of headroom to grow. While we are a dominant player in Gujarati content, we are contemplating whether or not to look at other languages and genres.

What kind of growth opportunity do you see for your digital business?

We will be doubling down a lot more on YouTube and a significant upward focus will come from us also in the Facebook space. Also, we see a lot of potential in short-form videos which are seeing an increasing amount of growth. YouTube is already a big business for us and Facebook, as I said, has a lot more opportunities other than video content format. This entire digital video piece is going to be one of our big pillars of growth, in the next couple of years.

Facebook can see phenomenal growth because we have not really upped our game in the past, we are present there, but we need to really up it. We are structuring our teams accordingly, and we are also investing in content so that we see very strong growth coming out of the digital video platform. The good thing is we are placed in multiple content pipelines due to which our monetisation pipelines are much more and hence our ability to invest is that much more.

Where do you see the content syndication heading in a changing media landscape?

Content syndication is our legacy business, and it is also a big pillar of growth. We will continue to max out our potential there. In India, the telco business is getting saturated, but going forward I see a lot of opportunity in the international space. We have just about scratched the surface when it comes to syndicating content to OTT and telecom players in international markets. There's a vast market lying there and there is a lot of hunger for Indian content. While we have forayed into the US, there's a large opportunity in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, and we will see a lot of action there in the near future, and that is going to be the third pillar. So, we have broadcast, digital video, and the syndication piece, which is also very profitable for us. It's important for that vertical to fire up to fund a lot of our initiatives.

What are the brand-building measures that you have planned for Shemaroo?

We have a lot of activities that will start unfolding in a couple of months. We will dial up our presence in the digital space, both in the B2B space, and you'll see a lot of B2C activities. While we have done B2C activities, it has not been done to the extent of other networks. We are building a more B2C brand. We have been a legacy B2B brand. Currently, we are operating in a lot of B2C businesses like broadcasting and OTT. In the social space, we will try and engage with a lot of young consumers. A lot of it will kick off with our 60th-year celebrations starting in November. There will be a focused concerted activity over the next 6-7 months because the Shemaroo brand as a young, modern, and active B2C brand is something that we need to really seed into the minds of our consumers and galvanize the connect with them.